Everyone agrees ObamaCare will be a huge issue in the 2014 elections. In 2013, the General Assembly said NO to accepting federal money to set up a state health care exchange as part of ObamaCare’s implementation. We reported on Tillis telling business leaders around the state in private meetings, around that time, that it’s not about IF we get ObamaCare, but HOW we manage it.

North Carolina Republican Senate hopeful Thom Tillis has been a very vocal critic of Obamacare, but when he was speaker of the state House, he helped bring a bill to the floor that would have created a state health care exchange.

Tillis is a potential challenger to Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan, who is considered particularly vulnerable in November’s election.

House Bill 115 was introduced in the state House in February of 2011 and was passed in May. It later died in the Senate. The bill would have created the North Carolina Health Benefit Exchange Authority, a state-based healthcare exchange where North Carolinians could purchase insurance, instead of having to use the federal website.